Can msgs be sent to a phone, not thru tower?

Any way to get at the Send and Receive Text functions of a phone?
In other words, is there a way to transmit a text such that another phone, within range and using my app, could receive that text?
Proposed app: The_Haiti_Phone:
All cell towers and land lines are down.
I would create a text msg to my wife's phone and my special app would send it.
All cell phones in range would pass it on.
When the packet's receiver's ID matches a cell phone's ID, the msg displays to the user.
In summary, in a catastrophe, all cell phones with my app act as cell towers.

Any way to get at the Send and Receive Text functions of a phone?
In other words, is there a way to transmit a text such that another phone, within range and using my app, could receive that text?
Proposed app: The_Haiti_Phone:
All cell towers and land lines are down.
I would create a text msg to my wife's phone and my special app would send it.
All cell phones in range would pass it on.
When the packet's receiver's ID matches a cell phone's ID, the msg displays to the user.
In summary, in a catastrophe, all cell phones with my app act as cell towers.

Click to expand...

Hrm.. I doubt it. I imagine the tower is doing some sort of encoding/decoding of the cellular signal that a phone itself will not do. I'm sure you could it to work short range with Bluetooth or WiFi, but I'm guessing what you're trying to do is going to be pretty difficult.